#79 S3 EP 41 Embracing Our God-Given Identity: Danielle Bernock's Journey from Self-Loathing to Self-Love through Faith

Hello, hello and welcome back, god's diamonds in the rough. We are so glad to be back with you one more time. You don't know who we are. I am Catherine.

And I am Michael.

And we are just so excited to be before you one more time getting into the word and talking about the goodness of the Lord and all of that good stuff. And today we have a guest with us. Her name is Danielle Burnock and she is talking about how we ought to be loving ourselves, going from surviving to thriving. We are so excited about this conversation and so, before we get into it, y'all know what we got to do. Just really quick.

Let us pray. Dear Father, our Lord and our Savior, jesus Christ, we come to you right now as a thank you. Thank you for your grace and your mercy, thank you for your loving, kindness and your tenderness. We pray in the name of Jesus. Catherine, any assignment of the enemy back into the picture where it came from. We pray in the name of Jesus that your people will hear your voice and understand what you are trying to tell them in that moment. We pray in the name of Jesus. Your Holy Spirit will just have its way. We love you. We give you thank you In Jesus Christ's name. We say thank you and we say amen, amen and amen, amen.

Amen. So, diamonds, we are impacting this world and we are just simply trying to make a difference, and we all know, or we should know, that that starts with you and definitely your relationship with God, wouldn't you say so?

I'll definitely say so because we got to realize that, look, the enemy is going to try, he's going to try to pull you out, but you can't let him. Amen, it's a God move, absolutely it's a God move.

Okay, so Danielle is on the line and she's with us. So, danielle, would you say hello to our diamonds, hello.

Thank you for having me today.

Yes, ma'am, we certainly appreciate you being here with us. So, as we kind of looked at your profile and everything, can you talk about from your perspective how important it is to love yourself?

I think it's critical, if we want to walk in obedience, to love one another as you love yourself. If you don't love yourself you can't follow that command. That's very core to that. But I also find that in the body of Christ many people stumble over that four letter word, self, because they think self is this awful thing. But he said to love one another as you love yourself. And so we need to love ourselves because we are who God created. He created us in his image and in his likeness and when we love ourselves we are loving what God loves, because for God so loved the world, he sent his son, so he loves us. So when we love ourselves we are honoring God. Loving ourselves is crucial to walking out in obedience, to following Jesus Christ as our Lord.

And so what would you say can happen if you don't love yourself?

Oh, that can go very wide and very broad, from how you destroy your own life and how you treat others because you will love others, how you hate yourself Absolutely If you are stuck in self-loathing and self-hating, like I used to be. I have a trauma background and I loathed myself, hated myself, tried to destroy myself and thought that God wanted me to do that. Because of that whole scripture that talks about denying yourself and crucifying yourself and how that was taught to me. Mingled with the trauma in my life, I thought that destroying myself was what I was supposed to do. But that's not what that's talking about. I and what I do. I define what the self is and separate it from what people think the self is. The self is the soul. That's who God created us to be. We are a spirit, we have a soul, we live in a body, but the soul, he said for us to with patience possess that he wants us to rule over that, to be redeemed in the sanctification process and all that jazz, all those nice religious words that people use. But that self is who God created us to live forever and to become more and more like him and walk in relationship with him, whereas the part of us that he wants us to submit under him and to rule over and to deny and all that. That's the ego. That's the ego. That's the part of a humanity that wants to be God. That's the part of us that needs to be crucified, the one that wants to say God, get off your throne, I want that. That's the ego. That is not the self. The self was designed to walk in union with the Lord from the garden. When Adam and Eve sinned, god didn't split. He didn't say oh, you guys are too sinful, I can't be around you. He came running. There's a song by I think it's Phillips, craig and Dean, kind of an old song. He said mercy came running. He came running. If anyone had the right to throw shame around, it would have been God. But he did not shame Adam and Eve. Instead, love covers a multitude of sins and he sought relationship. And that's through ourself, that's through our soul, our mind, our will, our emotions. When we hate ourself, we attack ourself, we hurt ourself, we are critical, we're judgmental, we're cynical, we're mean and angry. And when we are like that toward ourself, that's how we treat other people. So if we don't love ourself, it just wreaks havoc all over the place.

Absolutely I agree, honey, you got a thought.

Yeah, I do and I like that. When you said about the self because and the denying because the description says that I buffet my body daily and if you look at that description and you break it down into what it means to you, what it means to me is self-examination. You have to self-examine yourself every day, just like a person that's trying to lose weight or the person that's trying to gain body mass. What they do, everything they do, they check it to see their progress. That's why we need to buffet our body daily to see the process of change that's being formed by living the life of God.

And self-discipline. But self-discipline is another one of those words that tends to have a very negative connotation, depending on what a person understands discipline to be, and the generation I grew up in, discipline was being beaten and things like that. So self-discipline and even that scripture that you brought out about beating ourselves which again my generation we look at that as like you need to hurt yourself, you need to beat yourself, you need to be mean to yourself, and that's not what it is Self-discipline is, in the proper context, is a way of practicing self-love, because proper discipline is to do what's best for someone. If you love someone, you're going to instill value into them, like God does to us. And if we love someone, we have their best interest at heart, and so discipline is to walk that out in what is best. Like you have a little kid and the little kid wants to run out into the street. Well, we've told them not to do that because we want to steal all their fun. No, because we don't want them to get hit by a car. They don't understand that, which we need communication to make people understand. What is this? Why is this? Why are we doing this? What is the purpose of this? Because human nature pushes back from instruction. Don't tell me what to do. That's why on my website I use the word dare, daring people to do things. He has a tendency to insight a different part of humanity. More of curiosity and more of maybe. I'm going to do that instead of slapping their hands saying no Because we want to draw them in. That's what God does. He draws us in With loving kindness. He has drawn us and so that's what we want to convey to people is that drawing of loving kindness and the greater understanding of what is the self. It's who you are. That's where our choice resides, is in our self, because no one can make our choice for us. That's one of the greatest gifts God gave us from the beginning. He put Adam and Eve in the garden and he gave them a choice. He didn't hide the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He didn't bring it out later when he thought it was safer. No choice is something that we have and that resides in the self, and loving a person and them Understanding helps them to make a better choice and informed choice. It's better to ask questions. Well, why do you want me to do that? Why do you want me to not do that? What is the purpose of that? So, conversation and relationship, because God Himself exists in eternity. They are created as relational beings From the beginning. You know father, son and holy spirit. He exists in a relationship. That's why we need relationship, so we need to foster that, and that's why he wants us to love one another as ourself. There's that relationship again.

Yeah, and so you know, Surviving to thriving. What's that about surviving to thrive?

Oh, that's all about coming out of trauma. I'm a childhood trauma survivor and a survival mentality is a different mentality than a thriving mentality. One is you keep going under the water and you're gasping for air and you're clawing and grasping at things and there's a lot of fear and anxiety involved in that. But thriving is to move into Changing how we think about things, understanding the truth of what it means that Jesus came to give us life, and that abundantly. But that doesn't mean you know life is perfect. We need to be involved with that. If he's given us all things that pertain on to life and godliness through exceeding great and precious Promises, well, that's not magical but it's powerful if we will be involved in it. That's where our choice shows up again and learning under to understand well what do these things mean and how do they apply to my life. And to go from just surviving to thriving in life and knowing that we're loved and knowing that we have value and instilling value into other people and living with a sense of Purpose and a sense of value, because when you have that inside your own self, then you will foster that into other people's lives as well, and Helping other people thrive helps you thrive. Thriving is a growing, because living things grow and growing things change, and this is all about growth and improvement where survival is Just barely get along. So I want to help people going from the survival which it's good when people survive, and Instead of the opposite of not surviving. But survival is good, that doesn't mean it's bad, it's just that thriving is even better. So to help people thrive, to know that thriving is something they can have if they will do the work to Get the inner healing that they need to change how they think on the inside, toward themselves and toward others and toward God himself.

So a lie has been said in this regard about Self and I asked you that, or pose that kind of thought question, to just really speak to the, to our audience, to say you know, if you don't love yourself, you can't. It's like being in neutral in the car, it's like you're stuck, you're not going back where, you're not going forward, you just kind of standing still when you don't love yourself. And so you know, god has created you to Do something for him. We all have a purpose, we are. He has a plan for our life. So Can you tell us what the letters self stand for the s, the e, the L and E F?

Oh, certainly that's a process. The Lord revealed to me that he took me through it, as Everything that I do came out of my first book called emerging with wings. It's my story of getting free from childhood trauma and finding my value and Publishing. It was terrifying for me because I revealed parts of myself that I had just learned and people did not know about me. But by sharing that vulnerability it reached into people's lives and so they, I would, saw how I could help people. But as I wanted to learn, how do I take what God did in me and share it with other people? I'm like God. How did you do that? Because it was so intimate, such an intimate walk that you know everybody, their life isn't the same as mine. So how do I turn this into a process? And the Lord gave me the acronym self. It stands for C expose, love and free. The C is about awareness, because if we don't see something, we can't do anything about it. But if we see something and don't do anything about it, then being aware is insufficient. So that's where we have to go into the E for expose. We have to expose well, why did that happen and how is that affecting me and what's going to happen with this, and we have to go deeper. We have to, like, look underneath the rug, where things get swept under the rug. We need to lift that up and dig out, you know, little by little. That's why I go through my process over and over again with my students and my clients, because you can't go right to the core immediately. We have to do this in layers. Growth is a process, and then L is for love, because once we see and we expose, we're going to have lots of feelings. We're going to have lots of feelings that are going to feel like fear, anxiety. I don't know how to do this, I can't do anything. Oh, my goodness, what's wrong with me? All kinds of negative things are going to boil up to the surface. But then we lavish the love of God, learn how to love ourselves, because love gives us courage, love gives us boldness, love empowers us to move into the fourth part of F, which stands for freedom, and that's the action steps. That's where we have to do the work, because if I share things with people but they don't do anything about it, they will not reap the benefits If I give you a packet of seeds and I tell you. These are great seeds, this packet of seeds. These are like really hybrid, you know tomato seeds. I'll just bring up tomato for the sake of naming it, tomato seeds. They're really great and they're really luscious and they've been studied for all this time. And here's these seeds, and they're great, and I give them to you and you even open the packet and you look inside and you see the packet. That's wonderful, but you never plant them. You will never get the fruit about it. And people do. They listen to things, they'll learn a little bit more, but we have to do the work, which is why one of the things I also foster a lot is the process of little by little, little by little, because people are afraid of a lot, but they think they need to do a lot. So I learned a number of years ago from a magazine called Prevention, a thing called Just One Thing. Just One Thing Because when we need to change, we're like I need to do you know 40,000 different things, or 27 different things. I need to lose 100 pounds. Well, you can't lose 100 pounds in one day and you can't, you know, get rid of all of your problems in one day, but you can do one thing in one day. Everybody can do one thing. So one thing, pick one thing, one thing to do, and you do that thing over, and, over and over again, until that one thing is no longer a thing, it's just a part of your life. And then, after that becomes that, then you pick one thing again, and then you do that one thing over and over and over again and humanity kicks against this. It's not enough, it's not enough. Well, if you do this, if you will dare to do this, then you will look back after a year and take stock of how many things did you actually change by doing the little by little, one thing at a time approach. It really is quite powerful.

Wow, girl, you speak in my language. I love it, I love it, I love it, I love it, oh, man, and so, as we're getting closer to the towards the end of the conversation, you feel led to speak to, or us like. Your target audience is like 50 and older. Why is that?

Well, I'm a baby boomer. I was raised during the baby boom and learning that my generation had certain similarities. And also I aim toward the generation exers as well, because toward midlife is when people really start to own the truth that maybe I do need to do something about this stuff in my life. A lot of times in our 20s and 30s we're busy raising kids, we're distracted, we don't got time for this. I mean, I started working on my trauma before I had my kids, because I wasn't going to have kids. It was God's plan. I wasn't going to get married. That was God's plan. And that whole story is in my book, emerging With Wings. It's humorous, but it's also really powerful, because I wouldn't be where I am if God hadn't come and saved me. He pursued me with his love. He pursued me with his love because I had religious trauma. That was one of the traumas I had in my life and I thought God was his evil thing not evil, that's not the right word. I thought he was this harsh, mean thing in the air with a big baseball bat weight and a smack me upside the head. But that's not who he is. But he had to convince me. He had to convince me and that's where his love and graciousness and kindness is, with everlasting love, because he knew why I was running. And that's where his love is just so profound. As you who are listening, he knows why you are where you are, he knows why you are afraid, he knows why you are hurting, he knows why you hesitate and he loves you right there in that spot, and I just ask you to dare to say God, help me. That's all. I think that is the most powerful prayer we can pray from a true heart. God help, and he will come running, just like that song Mercy Comes Running, yeah.

Amen. So I do have a question, and it's more of a two-part question Can someone be suffering from trauma and not know it? And the second part is are there any signs?

I love this first question because people think the answer is no, but the answer is so all-capital letters. Yes, people can be suffering from trauma and not know it. Of course, that's something that I talk about and part of my mission statement is I want to make the invisible scene so that the silently wounded can heal and embrace their God-given greatness. Yes, because people misunderstand what trauma is. People think that trauma is an incident. They think that trauma is something that happened to them and then they start measuring whether it was big enough to be called trauma. People are they run away from that word trauma. We have destigmatized the word mental, the two words mental health, quite a bit over the last few years and I am really working on destigmatizing that word trauma because people do not understand the truth of what it is. It's the wound inside of a person's soul and body and spirit from something they have been through and it's quite complex. And, yes, there are a multitude of signs how you can identify it. One is that there is this undertow of a feeling of misery. In some sort there's shame shows up. There are a host of side effects. I have an assessment that I offer, free assessment, of how to identify how much is your childhood affecting your life? But trauma isn't just from childhood, it's also from adulthood. In my book Because you Matter, I interviewed 10 people and shared their stories as well, and many of them have adult trauma they have gone through and there's a lot of side effects. I call them side effects because people can understand that term. If they take a medication and then they have a side effect, they understand what that means. If you have trauma, you have a side effect and it affects us in all different ways. So, yes, you can have trauma and not know it, but you can find out if you want to investigate it. I have a free assessment at my website. And where is your website, danielleburnackcom? S-d-a-n-i-e-l-l-e-b-e-r-n-o-c-kcom? Hey man.

Y'all make sure y'all check the show notes for other information that you can get. If you might miss it, you'll still be able to access it. And how can we get your book?

My books are available on Amazon. If anyone lives in Michigan in the United States, I do book signings in the Southeastern Michigan area at various different grocery stores. I'm in a vendor program national authors in grocery stores. So you can find out my schedule of that on my website.

Okay, cool, all right, y'all, Make sure y'all go to her website. And did you have a final thought? You would like to give our listeners Ms Daniel before Michael and I give ours Sure.

I want to tell you that I love you. And you might say you don't know me, I don't need to know you. I love you because you deserve to be loved. I love you because I have learned that I am worthy of love and before the pandemic, right before the pandemic, the Lord put it on my heart and it started really slow because I was timid. But that's how we start. We start slow and that's okay. But I have become that lady on the internet who loves you and I proudly and confidently own that hashtag so I can go out there and tell you that I love you, and I mean it because I know that, knowing you're loved, not just understanding English, but knowing deep in your heart that it affects you every day, knowing that your love changes everything.

Amen.

Amen.

Michael, what's your final thought?

My final thought is this there's a difference between being knocked down and staying down.

Come on.

To be knocked down is life. We're going to go through things in life, but the difference is are you going to get back up or are you going to go, stay there and settle? Don't settle for it. Get up, keep fighting, no matter how many times you get knocked down, keep getting up. The moment you stay down, you give the enemy power. He don't have power. You do. Don't give him the satisfaction of looking at you down, hurt, bruised, wounded. Get up and keep fighting. God brought you to it. God going to bring you to it.

Come on somebody, amen. My final thought is simply this love yourself. This is what I got out of this whole conversation and out of the presence of Miss Danielle is that we all ought to love ourselves, no matter how high you might be, no matter the notoriety, the money, the fame, all of that, none of that matters if you don't love yourself, because those things can overcome you. They can literally take you out of this world and you can lose yourself in the things. Ultimately, love yourself more than you love anybody else. Love God more than anything. Love and God is more. That's what allows you to be able to love yourself properly and able to love others properly. So that's our final words to every heart that is here. Danielle, we so appreciate your presence.

Oh, thank you.

Amen. Would you do us a favor and pray us out.

Oh sure, oh Father, god, in Jesus' name, thank you for your great love, your great love that's unconditional and we can never be separated from it, that you love us so deeply. I pray for a spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of you for those who are listening. I pray for those that doubt your love or are afraid of your love and that push back because of the multitude of different reasons. I pray by your spirit you would draw them to you and open their understanding and bless them in Jesus' name, amen, amen.

Amen, all right, y'all. Y'all know what time it is.

Eye diamonds. Remember until next time. You are a diamond in the rough.

Amen, y'all have a blessed and blessed rest.